4 extra weeks - What to do for writing / composition?

[Porridge]

DD13 (8th) finished the composition that we planned for the year (Latter part of WWS 2, followed by Lively Art of Writing).  We still have 4 weeks left in our school year. Any suggestions for a something fun and interesting to tackle in this last month?

We do a Friday free write every week - it's free form creative writing where we all respond to a prompt and write for 30-45 minutes.

What I have on the shelf (Yes, I have too much....):

I could have her start the first 4 weeks of WWS3, but it seems kind of dry to start that right at the end of the year. 

I have Windows to the World, but that also seems like too big a something to try to start at the end of the year.

I have Models for Writers -- maybe we could choose a few of the essays to read and discuss and perhaps she could try to write one of her own? Not sure she is  mature enough for this...

ETA:  I'm brainstorming. Anyone know of any short journalism resources? I'm open to other ideas as well!

 

Edited March 19, 2022 by WTM

[Slache]

NaNoWriMo. It would actually take more than 4 weeks because it takes 1-2 to do the workbook first, but if you can afford the time in your next school year, do it.

https://ywp.nanowrimo.org/pages/writer-resources

[rutheart]

Poetry

Short story

Screenplay

Magazine article (let the kid choose an expertise from how they spend their free time)

Write a review: book, movie, video game, etc.

Compare/contrast essay of book vs movie

Autobiography

Resumé and cover letter (get ready for high school part-time job applications!)

 

Let the kid pick one project per week. Find resources on your bookshelf or online to teach the skills.

[8filltheheart]

PP presentation

writing across curriculum---don't use a writing text/assignments.  Just pick a topic that she is studying and assign topics.  If you want her to do some journalism type writing, you could assign topics from history, tell her to pretend to be a reporter, and write an "article" as if she were there.  Tell her the who, what, where, when, how structure and just let her write.  (Based on all of the news I have been reading lately, journalism skills have gone down the toilet and the ability to focus on a topic without constant repetition is lost.  I can't even suggest having her read articles to understand style and structure. Articles read like they get paid by the word, so they try to insert as many words as possible even if they are saying absolutely nothing of value.  I show them to my kids and tell them I'd flunk them if they turned in such poor quality writing to me.)

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

Killgallon Sentence Composing for Middle School / High School could be fun. It’s probably been a good while since she’s had a chance to really focus on her work at the sentence-by-sentence level & the focus is on creative writing, rather than academic essays. 

[Lori D.]

20 hours ago, WTM said:

...Anyone know of any short journalism resources?...

Agreeing with suggestions from @rutheart and @8filltheheart.

For a short journalism resource... perhaps: 

- School Journalism -- free articles & lesson plans (looks like middle/high school)
- Journalism Curriculum for Homeschoolers -- Five J's blog on how to DIY course
- Teachers Pay Teachers: Journalism Bundle

__________________

Copy-pasting excerpts from my post from a previous thread that may/may not be of any help whatsoever: 😉

re: teaching journalism
Four weeks is a very  short period of time to teach journalism, which includes the actual process of putting together a newspaper:
- elements that help "pay" for a newspaper such as collecting/writing ads and classifieds
- headline writing
- layout
- actual publishing, etc. ...

For teaching all of journalism, with a focus on the writing aspect, then I'd recommend spending 1-2 weeks EACH on how to write a news article, a sports piece, a feature, and an op-ed piece. Because each is very different in approach, language use, structure, and purpose...

re: teaching news article writing
In my co-op classes, when I have touched on journalism, it has been to focus JUST on news article writing, and producing ONE short news article, which we do in 2-3 weeks (since our class only meets once/week).

For my class, the news article assignment is within the greater context of the overall writing process -- specifically, the news article helps us learn:
- how to add details/flesh out paragraphs through the "5W+H" questions that are used in interviewing sources for an article
- how to embed quotations in your writing (how to blend it in, and how to punctuate
- how to write a title for your piece of writing (here, writing a headline)

So what I am doing is different from what you will be doing with teaching full-on journalism. However, in case it helps, for teaching how to write a news article, we cover:
- using the 5Ws + H questions for interviewing
- notetaking in interviewing
- the inverted pyramid structure of a news article (which is VERY different from essay structure)
- what the 5 stages of the writing process look like when creating a news article (e.g.: interviewing, embedding quotations)
- headline writing

We also spend time in class examining some news articles together to see how they are put together (headlines, inverted pyramid structure, embedded quotations), and also the language/tone of the writing for news articles (which is different than the language/tone used in features, op-ed, and sports articles).

These websites have some good news articles for 8th/9th graders:
News For Kids
DoGo News
Smithsonian Tween Tribune
Inside Science
BBC News Round

[keirin]

Ok, I hate to recommend something that I don't really have experience with, but I'm going to anyway. 🙂 I've been eyeing Blackbird and Company for my soon to be 6th graders, and I like that while they have whole year bundles they also have plenty of shorter options.

Here is their a la carte 6th-8th grade resources page:

https://blackbirdandcompany.com/product-category/a-la-carte/grades-6-8/

If anyone has used their materials and wants to chime in with a yay or nay this, it would probably be more useful than my lack of actual hands on experience suggestion here.